Shotwell Rutter Baer

We’ve talked about this topic before, but it keeps rearing its head. It’s Bitcoin and it’s back in the news.  The SEC has now decided that Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies are going to be saved. There are a handful of them that took them up on that offer. Watch on YouTube HERE . Previously, to buy Bitcoin, you had to go to an exchange and open an account that handled cryptocurrencies. Now, wha...

This episode is part of our series of retirement planning headlines and what they may or may not mean for your upcoming retirement. Our little roundup of things we’ve read over the last couple of weeks that are out there in the media. Watch it on YouTube HERE Today we are reviewing some of the headlines from December and January highlighting some of the better things we’ve seen out there for consu...

Join Dave and Nick as they review 2023’s fourth-quarter economy and give a current market update. We do this once a quarter to go through and see what happened last quarter and talk about what that potentially means for the future. Watch on YouTube HERE How Did We Do the 4th Quarter? The fourth quarter was pretty darn good. The Wall Street Journal called it The Everything Rally in late December. E...

Join Dave and Nick as they close out Season 2 of Kitchen Table Finance. They discuss setting realistic market expectations, especially in retirement. What is a realistic market expectation? Well, there’s a lot of research out there that shows that particularly in bull markets, a general investor has an inflated expectation of what the markets should do for them and how much money they should be ma...

Congratulations! You made it to retirement. You’ve worked hard, planned hard, saved, and are now enjoying your time. And then, the market dives. What do you do? Watch on YouTube HERE How do you deal with your first market downturn in retirement? Common advice is to invest for the long term and stay put in the short term. The markets are volatile in the long term and the averages typically work out...

A lot of people might think it is the Christmas season, but as investors for the past twenty or so years, it also means that there are some different opinions on the market during this time of year. Watch on YouTube HERE We’re talking about market patterns and our pre-programmed human need to look for patterns. An example of this is the stars in the night sky. When anybody looks at them they searc...

This is episode two in our series of retirement planning headlines and what they may or may not mean for your upcoming retirement. Our little round roundup of things we’ve read over the last couple of weeks that are out there in the media. Watch on YouTube HERE Charlie Munger Our lead story is an interview with Mr. Charlie Munger, who sadly passed away just a few days ago on November 28. He was 99...

When it comes to retirement planning, what are your key numbers? How often should you review them? Watch on YouTube HERE In today’s world, there’s a lot of different numbers out there. There are a lot of different things that you can stress about.  So we are going to talk today about what numbers are actually important to think about when it comes to retirement. It might surprise you. It is probab...

Join Dave and Nick for a special Thanksgiving Episode where they talk about what they are thankful for, the Markets, what’s good for retirees, and financial planning. We’ve got a lot to be thankful for as investors and financial planners this year despite the fact that it often seems like there’s a lot more bad news going on this year than there was last year. However, it’s kind of the reverse whe...

Join Dave and Nick as they try something new today on the show. Watch on YouTube HERE We hope this catches on and we can continue to do this on a regular basis. Both of us do a fair amount of reading when it comes to retirement planning and personal finance information. However, if you are in the habit of digesting news by just reading the headlines, this can be dangerous when it comes to controve...

Join Dave and Nick as they chat with Dr. Darla Bishop, the author of the upcoming book, How to Afford Everything. Watch on YouTube HERE Her book is available for pre-order until December 12, 2023, and then it will be available to the public. You can use the code KTF on her website for 20% off her book for a limited time. Order here: https://darlabishop.com/ Check out her Podcast here: https://www....

Join Nick and Dave as they discuss how the all-encompassing world of artificial intelligence may affect your investment portfolio. Watch on YouTube HERE This definitely isn’t a podcast about how it’s going to change our industry but we think of it in terms of how will it make us more efficient so we can help more people. It doesn’t seem like, in our lifetime, there has ever been a type of technolo...

Join Nick and Dave as they address some questions they have received recently about interest rates and CDs. Interest rates are looking pretty good, especially when you start driving around town and seeing billboards for 6 % twelve-month CDs. So part of the questions have been, “Why don’t we just put everything in CDs and earn 6% and be happy and go on our merry way?” When you look at the stock mar...

Join Nick and Dave for their 3rd Quarter 2023 Economic and Market Update. Watch this episode on YouTube HERE You can read the in-depth blog article HERE Our portfolio managers at East Bay Investment Solutions provide us every quarter with what they consider the positives and negatives of our current economic situation, as well as in-depth commentary on the past quarter’s markets. You can download...

Join Dave and Nick as they discuss a few of their favorite movies about money. Do you have any to add to the list? Drop them in the comments. Watch on YouTube Here Here is a list of the movies discussed in this episode Wallstreet – this is what everybody in our generation thought being a stockbroker was all about. Glengarry Glen Ross – the story about four days in the lives of these guys who are w...

Join Dave and Nick for another helpful MSU Case study. This time they review retirement options for a retired couple with more than enough for retirement. Watch on YouTube HERE Check out our past case studies and you might find one that fits your situation, or close to it. Ep 114: Retirement Planning Case Study for an MSU Employee Ep 120: New MSU Professor Retirement Planning Ep 128 – MSU Case Stu...

Join Dave and Nick as they walk you through how to decipher and decode all the information that comes at us in the media regarding finances. Watch on YouTube HERE This is something we both talk about with our clients on a regular basis. Sometimes this is good stuff to remind ourselves as well, It’s all kinds of stuff that get you and me riled up in the market and the financial media about the mark...

Join Dave and Nick on today’s topic, which is an extension of an earlier podcast they did on the book review of The Soul of Money . An underlying topic is how to make yourself heard with the voice of money. What we mean by that is we all make conscious or unconscious decisions on how we spend our money. Put another way, where we purchase things from and what we do with our excess discretionary mon...

Join Nick and Dave as they discuss the interesting topic of what to do when your “Too Hard” pile gets too big. This is inspired by the article My ‘Too Hard’ Pile Is Pretty Big by Christine Benz in the Morningstar publication about personal finances. What is a “Too Hard Pile?” The term “Too Hard Pile” was coined by Charlie Munger to describe investments that just aren’t worth the effort because the...

Join Nick and Dave as they talk about money scripts and how they might be affecting your financial plan. They also cover things that you can do to kind of recognize and move forward. Watch on YouTube HERE The guys also reminisce about their first memories of money. Dave’s first memories involve the tooth fairy and separately, his grandfather.  “I remember when I’d see my grandfather when I was you...

Join Nick and Dave as they discuss MiAble Accounts. You may have seen the billboards around town and wondered what they are all about. What are they? Who are they for? Should you get one? Watch on YouTube HERE A MiAble account can be established for an individual with disabilities where they can actually create some savings for themselves without it interfering with government benefits from social...

Join Dave and Nick as they review the book, Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. Watch on YouTube HERE Thinking, Fast and Slow concerns a few major questions: how do we make decisions? And in what ways do we make decisions poorly? The book covers three areas of Daniel Kahneman’s research: cognitive biases, prospect theory, and happiness. Here is the summary from the website Shortform.com “We...

Join Dave and Ashley (Nick is on vacation) as they talk about Student Loan Repayment Plans, which have been in the news because they’ve just rolled out the details of a new plan. Watch on YouTube HERE The plan is called the SAVE Plan, which is short for Saving on a Valuable Education. It’s going to be replacing the repayment plan that currently exists. If you are in the repay plan you will be auto...

Join Dave and Nick as they talk about different that require insurance and other things that may be an option. Learn some tips on how you may be able to save money on things you might over-insuring. Watch on YouTube HERE Dave got a glossy flyer in the mail recently selling appliance repair insurance that came with a whole caveat of exceptions and exclusions that probably make the offer not worth i...

The year is half over, and despite recession fears, banking turmoil, and a debt-ceiling standoff in Washington, the stock market continued its current roll last quarter. US stocks, as measured by the Russell benchmarks, were positive across the board for the quarter, year to date, and the last 12 months. While international returns aren’t as robust, the results have also been positive across all.....